Within the airline industry, industry-wide regulations require baggage tracking. For decades, baggage tracking has been achieved using laser-scanned 1d barcode paper tags which are affixed to baggage articles during check-in. However, these laser scanning systems are antiquated, extremely expensive to install and maintain and do not allow for detailed tracking of baggage within the airport infrastructure. As the number of passenger journeys increases, there is a need to provide more precise tracking data to enable individual articles of baggage to be located more effectively and efficiently.
Any solution to these problems must satisfy the tracking, sorting and reconciliation requirements of the air transport industry. Additionally, an initial solution must be expandable and cost effective in order to effectively cover the whole journey made by the bag, which may include travel destinations outside of the airport, for example hotels, and car rental locations.
Known tracking solutions include using passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) inlays coded with passenger related data which are added to paper baggage tags. RFID scanners are used to interrogate the RFID inlays to determine the identity of each baggage tag. However, RFID scanners cost thousands of dollars each, resulting in the RFID systems being expensive to deploy throughout the baggage journey. A further problem with RFID systems is that a large number of RFID tags may be excited at once by a RFID scanner. This leads to the detection of a large number of conflicting signals which need to be resolved by the system, so increasing the technical complexity.
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) or Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) are inappropriate solutions to the above problems as they are expensive and complex to operate on a global level and are not sufficiently accurate indoors.
There is therefore a need for an improved tracking system which overcomes or ameliorates the problems with known systems described above.